Philippians 2:6-11 (the reason for the season)

by mattkeflowers

This passage is one of those dearest to my heart. In it weighs the fullness of who Christ is, what He did, and why.

He is God in the flesh. He descended from His place at the height of Creation, an existence infinitely glorious, and He dwelt with us. Though He could have come as a ruler, He arrived instead the helpless babe in a manger. Though He could have claimed a harsh and dominating mastery over His creation, He instead served them. He fed them, cleaned their feet, healed them, wept with them and taught them. Further still when the time came He suffered the greatest shames the Enemy could prepare, dying lonely, beaten and broken as many jeered and mock the life He had lived, even as His friends and followers watched in fearful silence. All of this He did first for the Glory of God the Father.

But in that moment, when Darkness seemed to have won its long game, something beyond the fears of Death itself came to be. For He remained not in the tomb, after three days He rose again in newness of life. In doing so He undid the power of Sin and Death. Thus was He exalted to the highest place once more. Conqueror and servant, He sits enthroned in His Glory, ever deserving of endless praise from all that has been created by His hands.

That is why I rejoice today and every day, for Christ is King.

“[Christ], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”